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Synonyms

autobiography

American  
[aw-tuh-bahy-og-ruh-fee, -bee-, aw-toh-] / ˌɔ tə baɪˈɒg rə fi, -bi-, ˌɔ toʊ- /

noun

  • autobiographies
    plural
  1. a history of a person's life written or told by that person.


autobiography British  
/ ˌɔːtəʊbaɪˈɒɡrəfɪ, ˌɔːtəbaɪ- /

noun

  1. an account of a person's life written or otherwise recorded by that person

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

autobiography Cultural  
  1. A literary work about the writer's own life. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa are autobiographical.


Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns


Etymology

Origin of autobiography

First recorded in 1790–1800; auto- 1 + biography


Explanation

You are writing an autobiography when you write your own life story. A writer who writes an autobiography is like a painter who paints a self-portrait. If you intend to write your autobiography one day, it might be a good idea to start recording notes about your life in a diary. The author Gertrude Stein was being clever when she poked fun at the very idea of autobiography when she wrote her own memoirs but titled them The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, instead of The Autobiography of Gertrude Stein.

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary lists containing autobiography

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The pope gave Dylan a rosary and the singer gifted the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics his autobiography, the report said.

From Barron's ● Nov. 4, 2026

Wain reminded readers of his autobiography that in Tolkien’s time the Oxford English syllabus “was weighted in favor of the Middle Ages.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

Legendary TV producer Chuck Lorre is opening up about his life like never before with the release of his autobiography, “Sitcom: A Memoir,” pulling back the curtain to reveal details of his personal life.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 27, 2026

In his 2010 autobiography, My Life on Mars, he recalled a builder stopping him in The Open University car park to shake his hand.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

A child of a miner, Z.K. had been influenced by Booker Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery, which preached success through hard work and moderation.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2026

The book’s leading actors have been subjects of biographies and autobiographies, and most events have been exhaustively covered in scholarly and popular histories and articles as well as media reports.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 16, 2025

Chapter 9 is about Frederick Douglass and identity-aware liberalism, as expressed through his autobiographies.

From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2024

Eruption, which had original working titles of The Black Zone and Vulcan, is Patterson's first attempt at posthumous publishing - but he is familiar with high-profile collaborations, having written Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton's autobiographies.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2024

It is not enough to say that my mother and father do not want to write their autobiographies.

From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez

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